Gun Policy News

Gun violence, gun control and small arms

Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar has scrapped a controversial Army tender worth around '1,000 crore to procure 45,000 rifles amid allegations of corruption in the acquisition process.
The tender was under the scanner over the possibility of favours being given to Israeli firm, Israeli Weapons Industry, over its other rivals in the deal. The tender for the rifles was issued in 2010 in which 44,600 close quarter carbines (rifles) were to be provided to the infantry... (GunPolicy.org)

A United Nations panel of experts found evidence of "well-established networks" of arms suppliers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, including from Israel, that are fueling the war in South Sudan.
In a confidential report to the Security Council obtained by AFP on Thursday, the panel described the arms deals that are not recent and involve Israeli and Bulgarian firms.
The Council has threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan to try to end the fighting... (GunPolicy.org)

AZZUN — In the predawn hours, 150 Israeli troops, including masked special forces operatives, arrived in this Palestinian town in armored personnel carriers and hardened jeeps to hunt for guns and gun makers. They found one of each. The operation was deemed a success.
The raid in Azzun is part of an aggressive campaign by Israel to rid the occupied West Bank of guns — specifically a crude kind of do-it-yourself, handmade submachine gun known on the Palestinian... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: The United Kingdom is the second largest exporter of arms. Between 2010 and 2015, the UK has sold weapons worth 10 million pounds to Oman, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates, countries that are classified as "Non-free" by the Freedom House NGO. Other countries that buy from the UK are Saudi Arabia and Israel.]
Le Royaume-Uni est le deuxième plus grand exportateur d'armes du monde sur les 10 dernières années et devant des pays comme la... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Israel's State Attorney has recommended a sentence of three years for possessing a firearm without a licence, and from four to six years for more serious crimes related to illegal guns. Illegal firearms are very common among the Arab Israeli community and the homicide rate is 1.8 per 100,000 citizens.]
Pour Shai Nitzan, les procureurs devraient insister pour des peines de prison pour les possesseurs et les vendeurs d'armes sans permis
Le Procureur... (GunPolicy.org)

Jerusalem-based Zore is one of a group of companies trying to make guns safer, and it has a personal reason to do so.
The company, led by CEO Yonatan Zimmerman, was founded by a group of Israeli army veterans, who decided to tackle accidental deaths caused by the misuse of firearms after an army friend of theirs was shot by friendly fire.
The team has developed a gun lock, Zore X, that combines a gun's original mechanism with technology to create a storage solution... (GunPolicy.org)

The Small Arms Survey (SAS) released its annual Transfers and Transparency trade update for 2016, which reveals that the world's top and the largest of the smaller arms exporters conducted trade to the tune of $5.8bn in 2013. This represents an increase of 17 percent in small arms trade on 2012, which came in at $5bn flat.
The United States alone, the world's largest arms manufacturer and exporter, exported a record breaking $1.1bn worth of small arms in 2013. In a... (GunPolicy.org)

Border Police officers located a semi-automatic M-16 assault rifle on Monday in a home in the Arab Israeli village of Ain al-Sahla in the Wadi Ara region in the north.
Making the finding of the M-16 all the more unusual was that the lethal weapon was inscribed with the logo of the US Navy SEALs, though the insignia appears likely to have been faked.
Adding another troubling aspect to the find is the fact that Wadi Ara was the hometown of the terrorist Nashat Milhem,... (GunPolicy.org)

Gun controls will soon be loosened to allow more trained civilians to carry firearms, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan wrote in a letter to MK Amir Ohana Wednesday.
"In order to strengthen the security of Israeli citizens and their feeling of security in public spaces, I instructed that there be a controlled broadening of the existing criteria to give permits to carry a firearm, in a way that will allow trained civilians, primarily those who were in security... (GunPolicy.org)

When American Tom Heberlein tried to import his firearms to Sweden, he got as far as his transfer in the U.K. before it started to become complicated. There, despite having the correct paperwork, a U.K. customs official said: "You can't have these guns."
And thus began Mr. Heberlein's global gun education.
Although Mr. Heberlein did, after a lot of negotiation, finally get his guns through U.K. customs and in to Sweden, the entire experience created a hassle he hadn't... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Israeli soldiers can now carry their guns when they are not on duty, to enable them to intervene following a surge of Palestinian attacks. The decision was made after the homicide of an Israeli soldier who was not allowed to keep his gun with him.]
Les soldats israéliens ont reçu ordre de porter leurs armes personnelles en rentrant chez eux même en dehors de leur service pour pouvoir intervenir à la suite de la recrudescence des attaques de... (GunPolicy.org)

Gun control isn't usually a major political issue here, but it has come up in a big way in recent months, after several terrorists in the current wave of terrorism were subdued by civilians.
The debate on gun control came to a head in Monday's inaugural meeting of the Knesset Caucus on Firearms Policy - perhaps the closet Israel has ever gotten to a US-style "gun lobby" - but even those in favor of easing regulations have made it clear that they're not gunning for... (GunPolicy.org)

Australia and Britain have been held out as examples of foreign countries that moved quickly to impose gun restrictions in the wake of national tragedies as the United States grapples with what — if any — policy reforms could prevent future mass shootings like the recent attack in Oregon.
Both countries saw a drop in gun-related crimes after imposing restrictions, though analysts debate whether the laws deserve credit.
But all sides agree the moves Britain and... (GunPolicy.org)

The latest U.S. shooting that ended in the deaths of 10 people at an Oregon college last week is reigniting calls for tighter gun laws and prompting comparisons to gun violence in other countries.
President Barack Obama asked why Americans can't follow the example of the U.K. and Australia. They crafted laws that "almost eliminate mass shootings," he said. "We know there are ways to prevent it."
Adam Lankford, an associate professor at the University of Alabama... (GunPolicy.org)

During the 1980s, El Salvador was the single largest recipient of U.S. military hardware and weaponry in the Western Hemisphere. Although the Central American country's civil war ended in 1992, the guns, grenades and bullets linger, as do their murderous effects. In September, a U.S. official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated that half the weapons available on El Salvador's vibrant black market were made in the United... (GunPolicy.org)

Yoram Issachar, who owns a contracting company in Jerusalem with his father and two brothers, has carried a Baretta 765 for the past 25 years. He works in Jewish communities on land Israel acquired in the West Bank, employing 15 - 30 Palestinian laborers, and carries the gun for his protection. Now, after the attack in Jerusalem that killed four worshippers and a police officer, he plans to upgrade to a larger gun. Immediately after the attack, he says, he took out his... (GunPolicy.org)

Small arms and gun violence present the most dramatic threat to public safety in Latin America and the Caribbean. After decades of uncontrolled proliferation, at least 45 million to 80 million small arms and light weapons—that is, weapons operated by an individual or small group, including handguns, assault rifles, grenades, grenade launchers, and even man portable surface to air missiles—are circulating throughout the region.(1) Gunshots kill between 73,000 and... (GunPolicy.org)

The Knesset Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women is about to discuss a national action plan, initiated by a wide coalition of feminist NGOs, for the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325. The resolution calls for the adoption of a gender perspective in peace and security issues, or simply put – for the consideration of women's special security needs, and of the unique nature of harm they suffer. For the first time, the national action plan... (GunPolicy.org)

Eighty four people were taken into custody on Tuesday morning, suspected of illegally buying arms via internet.
1,600 illegal online transactions were registered by police investigators.
According to an initial report, more than 330 handguns, 50 shotguns, dozens of spare parts and thousands of cartridges were seized.
The arms mostly came from Central Europe, Austria and Germany.
The investigation started in 2012 when French customs authorities intercepted a package,... (GunPolicy.org)

European Union countries licensed arms exports in 2012 valued at €39.9 billion, according to newly released figures. This included a record €9.7 billion in sales to the Middle East – a 22 percent increase on sales in the previous year.
The statistics are revealed in the Fifteenth Annual Report on Control of Exports of Military Technology and Equipment.
The European Network Against the Arms Trade (ENAA) says that the figures show little change in arms export... (GunPolicy.org)

An RCMP decision on whether to approve an Alberta man's exotic pistol could widen a loophole doubling the legal magazine capacity for semi-automatic rifles.
Last year Edward Osborne, a Calgary gun collector and competitive target shooter, imported a Czech-made VZ58 pistol, a shortened version of the popular CZ858 rifle, from the United States.
"I like it because it's very unique," he said in an interview. "I like the VZ58 platform in general, and this is one that I'd... (GunPolicy.org)

Police in Colombia have captured an arms dealer whose operations reached across continents and whose criminal contacts spanned the spectrum of Colombian armed groups.
According to police, Gustavo Velasquez, alias "El Señor de la Guerra" (the Lord of War) sourced assault rifles through contacts in Israel and Russia and moved them through Venezuela and into the department of Norte de Santander in Colombia.
Police say the arms were then sold on to the narco-guerrilla... (GunPolicy.org)

To help push Soviet forces out of Afghanistan in the 1980s, America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) gave Afghan fighters shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft missiles (pictured). Accurate and easy-to-use, the Stingers caused grievous losses. But after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the CIA wanted to discourage the use of the leftover missiles. It got hold of some of those circulating on the black market and booby-trapped them, so that anyone who tried to fire one... (GunPolicy.org)

A military veteran from Wheeling, W.Va., has been sentenced to five years of federal probation for illegally shipping guns to Israel, Canada and elsewhere.
Michael Frank, 26, admitted in January that he sold 24 weapons to foreign customers. The U.S. attorney's office had argued that he deserved at least four years in prison, while his lawyer asked for an alternative to jail time. He was sentenced Tuesday.
The case began in May 2012 after authorities in Jerusalem... (GunPolicy.org)

The Guatemalan government will invest some $12.6 million to buy new weapons for the National Civil Police, or PNC, a government minister said Wednesday.
Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said at a press conference that after 10 "failed bidding processes" to buy the weapons for the PNC held between 2005 and 2011, authorities opted to make the acquisition from three different foreign manufacturers via an "exceptional agreement."
The procedure, which is allowed by... (GunPolicy.org)

A National Rifle Association delegation from the United States was joined by former US ambassador to the UN John R. Bolton Thursday for a tour and briefing at the capital's Police Intelligence and Observation Center, located in the Old City.
The state-of-the-art center, which features nearly 40 high definition screens monitoring the Old City 24 hours a day, is utilized to alert officers to any potential threats.
Bolton, who served under former president George W. Bush... (GunPolicy.org)

PARIS — The gun fired four shots into a gelatin block. Each nine-millimeter bullet punched deep into the substance, which was meant to mimic the density of a human body.
For the experts at the Austrian Interior Ministry performing the test, it was a clear sign: This was a deadly weapon.
But it was no ordinary gun. The officials had downloaded the gun's digital blueprints from the Internet and "printed" the weapon on a type of 3-D printer that any person could buy... (GunPolicy.org)

This year, 11 individuals were murdered and five committed suicide in Israel using privately owned weapons, said Internal Security Minister Yizhak Aharonovich Wednesday.
At a meeting of the the Internal Affairs Committee on reducing weapons, headed by MK Miri Regev, Aharonovich stated that as part of the gun reform in Israel, anyone who wishes to receive a gun permit will be required to undergo a medical and psychological examination. "If they won't pass the... (GunPolicy.org)

Reporters managed to smuggle a home-made plastic gun into the Knesset with little difficulty, and pulled it out only meters away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The correspondents from Channel 10′s nightly culture and technology program "Tzinor Layla" printed the gun using instructions downloaded from the Internet on a three-dimensional printer.
Investigative reporters from the program went through all the Knesset security checks with the gun in their... (GunPolicy.org)

One day after a Be'er Sheva man shot dead four people in a local bank before turning his gun on himself, the Public Security Ministry on Tuesday announced new rules to limit the number of guns in circulation. School security guards will have to turn in their weapons, which guarding firms will reissue at the start of the new school year. Licensed gun owners will have to store their weapon in a safe at home. Security companies must obtain special exemptions from being... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — A gunman stormed into a bank in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba Monday, killing four people in a gunfight and taking a hostage before killing himself, police said.
Police initially suspected a bungled bank robbery but later changed their assessment.
They identified the gunman as a former military officer who fell on hard times financially. The 40-year-old man arrived at the bank to withdraw money and settle a debt, police said. He reportedly got... (GunPolicy.org)

Following a recent surge in gun murders in Israel, Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich has called on citizens to hand illegally held guns to police without facing criminal charges. The public will be able to turn the munitions at police stations throughout the country for a month, starting Wednesday.
The law calls for a maximum penalty of seven years in jail for someone caught in possession of an unlicensed firearm. Police sources told Ma'ariv they expected... (GunPolicy.org)

A 36-year-old mother of four was killed Tuesday by a gunshot in the Galilee village of Rama. Preliminary evidence shows she was killed while her husband, a career soldier in the Israeli army, who possesses a registered weapon as part of his duties, was cleaning his weapon. The loaded firearm apparently discharged a bullet by accident, hitting the woman.
This incident raises – yet again – the question of whether there is a need for all members of the Israeli armed... (GunPolicy.org)

ABIDJAN - Côte d'Ivoire's recent turbulence - including the ouster of president Henri Konan Bédié in 1999, a long-running insurgency and deadly poll unrest in 2011 - has left the country awash in arms, which have contributed to human rights abuses, widespread crime and persistent insecurity.
Two years after coming to power in 2000, Laurent Gbagbo's administration faced an army mutiny, which morphed into a full-scale rebellion. In response, the government underwent a... (GunPolicy.org)

The Commissioner of the Irish police has rejected calls for detectives to be reissued with Uzi submachine guns.
Martin Callinan said it "would not have made the slightest bit of difference" if a murdered detective had been armed with an Uzi.
Detective Adrian Donohoe was shot during a robbery on 25 January 2013.
The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) passed a motion calling for the reissue of the Israeli-made weapons at its conference.
The guns,... (GunPolicy.org)

Diplomats from around the world have gathered at the UN for talks on an international arms trade treaty, in an effort to stop the sale of illegal conventional arms.
Similar talks held last July failed, mainly due to the objections of the US and Russia, the world's two largest arms exporters.
Al Jazeera has compiled a list of facts related to the global production and trading of small arms.
1. Authorised international transfers of small arms, light weapons, their... (GunPolicy.org)

DAYTON, Wyoming — Craig Reichert found his son's body on a winter morning, lying on the floor as if he were napping with his great-uncle's pistol under his knee. The 911 dispatcher told him to administer CPR, but Mr. Reichert, who has had emergency training, told her it was too late. His son, Kameron, 17, was already cold to the touch.
Guns are like a grandmother's diamonds in the Reichert family, heirlooms that carry memory and tradition. They are used on the... (GunPolicy.org)

WASHINGTON — Nine days after the Newtown, Conn. massacre in which 20 children died, Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, broke his group's long silence with a bristling attack against gun regulation that included a theme heard frequently among gun rights advocates.
"Israel had a whole lot of school shootings until they did one thing," LaPierre said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They said, 'We're going to stop it,' and they put... (GunPolicy.org)

The American confectionery company Victoria Sweets claims to have invented the candy cigarette. A thin stick of chocolate, wrapped in edible paper and designed to impersonate a roll-up, it debuted in 1915 and soon became the accessory of choice for children keen to play grown-up. Hollywood star, GI Joe, team captain: the sweet gave kids the chance try out one of the vogue props of adulthood.
Within 20 years it was so popular that cigarette companies began to take... (GunPolicy.org)

Whether looking after his herd of cattle or taking them to the watering point, Boru hardly leaves his AK47 behind. He lives in the outskirts of Gambella village, a few kilometres from Isiolo town.
"It has become like a stick for me. I carry it around and my enemies fear me. It gives me more power than I had before I acquired it," Boru said.
Taking cover from the scorching sun under the shade of an old acacia tree, Boru, a father of three, told the Star he bought his... (GunPolicy.org)

The United States stands truly alone in the developed world for its lax gun laws, which have contributed to Americans owning guns at a far higher rate than anyone else. The National Rifle Association, in its pushback against calls for gun restrictions after the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting, has portrayed things somewhat differently. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre has drawn comparisons to Israel, saying that the U.S. should follow Israel's example of loose gun laws and... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Israel's policy on issuing guns is restrictive, and armed guards at its schools are meant to stop terrorists, not crazed or disgruntled gunmen, experts said Monday, rejecting claims by America's top gun lobby that Israel serves as proof for its philosophy that the U.S. needs more weapons, not fewer.
Far from the image of a heavily armed population where ordinary people have their own arsenals to repel attackers, Israel allows its people to acquire... (GunPolicy.org)

Following the tragic shooting last week in Newtown, Conn., two stories leapt out at me. The first was the astonishing tale of a teacher, Victoria Soto, who hid her first-graders in closets and took a bullet rather than risking the children's lives by hiding with them. The second featured a photograph of an Israeli woman with a military-style long gun slung across her back, herding children protectively. The contrast between the powerful Israeli woman and the unarmed... (GunPolicy.org)

State Comptroller Yosef Shapira is planning to conduct a special inquiry into Israel's gun control regulations following recent incidents involving security guards who murdered their wives – as well as the massacre of children in Newtown, Connecticut.
The inquiry will focus on the Ministry of Public Security, which is responsible for the supervision of firearm licensing and security companies authorized to posses weapons and hand them over to their employees.
The... (GunPolicy.org)

There is no full-auto Friday or Ladies night at the "Lahav" gun store in TA, a store that bears little resemblance to its US counterparts.
A gun lover's dream or a stringently controlled police state that would make a National Rifle Association supporter's blood boil? In recent days, following the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 dead, including 20 children, Israel has been mentioned as a country awash in guns yet still free of such random massacres. Many... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW DELHI - The Indian Army has half a million rifles and carbines it doesn't want, and now plans to junk them all over the next five years. The dark lining is that these infantry weapons were developed and manufactured in India to equip four lakh soldiers at an expenditure of Rs 25,000 crore over two decades. So far, so bad. Now add another Rs 50,000 crore that will have to be spent over the next decade to re-equip our soldiers with the four kinds of weapons that are... (GunPolicy.org)

There's one big problem with small arms: They don't come with an expiration date. These reliable killing machines pass from dead soldiers to living insurgents, and from a country's armory to a militia's safe house thousands of miles away. As soon as weapons crates cross international borders, arms-producing countries lose control over where they head next - a fact on full display during recent conflicts across the Middle East, and now in the Gaza Strip.
On Nov. 17,... (GunPolicy.org)

A young American shot and killed a chef at a hotel in the Red Sea resort city of Eilat Friday, before forces from an anti-terror unit shot the gunman dead, police said. The incident appeared to be based on a personal dispute.
The attacker was on a Jewish work and study program and was employed at the hotel until earlier this week.
Eilat police official Eitan Gedassis told Israel Radio the attacker snatched a gun from a hotel security guard and fired a number of shots... (GunPolicy.org)

UNITED NATIONS — The world's nations began a final push Tuesday for the first legally binding global treaty that would regulate the international arms trade and try to prevent the transfer of weapons to armed groups and terrorists.
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is expected to approve the treaty, which has been in the works since 2006, when the U.S. voted against the resolution that launched the process. The Obama administration later reversed the George W.... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW DELHI - AK-47s continue to be the preferred assault weapon for the country's paramilitary forces deployed to neutralise terrorists and Maoists at the frontiers and in the hinterland.
Over 29,000 pieces of this Russian-origin rifle were imported by forces like CRPF, BSF and NSG over the last three years, leaving behind, by a large margin, other sophisticated assault weapons procured from the US and Israel.
The inventory of the assault weapons procured for security... (GunPolicy.org)

Despite police efforts to stamp out the use of firearms in the Arab sector, gun crime rose by 7 percent in the first three months of 2012 in comparison to the same period last year, police said Monday.
In 2011, in 557 cases a firearm was used during the commission of a crime, with 579 arrests made for firearms offenses, police said.
The police and the Public Security Ministry have been the subject of continued criticism from the Arab sector due to the mayhem caused by... (GunPolicy.org)

Israel has a booming security industry, but a loophole in the law allows guards to take their weapon's home. That's led to an alarming incidence of domestic gun-related crime against women. Israel's only disarmament lobby group has launched a campaign to tigthen Israel's gun laws before more women are... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Today, the French system on arms export control remains opaque: unlike neighboring countries such as United Kingdom and Netherlands. For example, it is impossible to know exactly what France sells, to whom, for what use or … if it refuses to sell to third countries. The last five years have not allowed significant advances. Instead, with the easing in spring 2011 of arms transfer controls inside and outside the European Union, or the refusal to... (GunPolicy.org)

The United Nations is urging all nations in the Asia region to implement concrete solutions to stop illegal trading in small arms and light weapons.
"Over the past decades, trade has made this region grow so phenomenally. If you are a region where international trade is what makes you tick, you better also make sure that you are seen as doing trade in the right way," UN disarmament affairs official Daniel Prins told reporters on the sidelines of opening the Asian... (GunPolicy.org)

Editor's Note: Dr. Frank Ochberg is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Michigan State University and former Associate Director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
School shootings are far more frequent in America than in other countries, although terrible massacres have occurred in Russia, Israel, and several European nations. In the high-crime neighborhoods of inner cities, school turf is relatively safe. We have learned to harden the target and patrol with... (GunPolicy.org)

A small, scratched metal can thrown on the ground created Brazil's first diplomatic embarrassment of 2012. The canister of tear gas had been collected by pro-democracy activists in Bahrain. Stamped across the can in blue was a Brazilian flag and the words 'MADE IN BRAZIL.'
One year had passed since Bahrain became the stage for pro-democracy protests by the majority Shiites against the Sunni monarchy commanded by king Hamad bin-Isa Khalifa. The protesters had been... (GunPolicy.org)

Two young men stood under a residential building in Rehovot's Kiryat Moshe neighborhood last week, having a chat. Suddenly, shots were fired, probably from close range, and the two fell to the ground with gaping gunshot wounds.
What followed is a scene that has played itself out repeatedly in recent years. Shocked neighbors rushed to the scene. Within minutes, the sirens of ambulances drew closer, before paramedics arrived to rush the victims to hospital. Police came... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: With the support of the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs, Brazilian gun manufacturers seek new markets in countries with a history of human rights violations: Tunisia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Philippines and Yemen. Brazil is among the six countries in the world with annual exports exceeding $ 100 million, according to recent research from Small Arms Survey. According to the Army, responsible for supervising and controlling exports from 2005 to... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIRUT - As Abu Rida reels off a list of the latest prices for weapons and ammunition on Lebanon's black market, his small audience lets out low whistles of surprise."$2,000 for an RPG?" said one man, referring to a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
"I swear to God," replied Abu Rida who has seen his profits skyrocket over the past year. "The prices are crazy. And it's all going to Syria."
Black market arms dealers like Abu Rida are struggling to cope with a soaring... (GunPolicy.org)

CARACAS - Kairobis Arcia, 25, died from a bullet to her head shot by her husband, Oswaldo Mendoza, 32, who said he was blinded by jealousy in an argument fuelled by alcohol and drugs.
Her murder was just one of the more than 468,000 homicides a year that occur worldwide, 42 percent of which are committed with firearms. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the global murder rate is 6.9 per 100,000 people – 11.9 per 100,000 among men and... (GunPolicy.org)

MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), chairwoman of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women, demanded on Monday that security guards be required to leave their weapons at work, following a report that 24 people were killed in the last decade by guns belonging to off-duty security guards.
The report was issued by Woman to Woman, the Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women.
"Security companies seem to have received an exemption from the law that forbids guards to remove their... (GunPolicy.org)

Weapons smuggled from Libya after the collapse of Moammar Gadhafi's government are flowing through the surrounding region, the president of the west African nation of Niger said Friday, a development that threatens to destabilize a swath of the continent already struggling against ethnic unrest and a regional branch of al Qaeda.
"Arms were stolen in Libya and are being disseminated all over the region," President Mahamadou Issoufou told reporters following a meeting... (GunPolicy.org)

The collapse of strongman Muamar Gaddafi's government and the ensuing chaos in Libya could prove to be boon to the militant groups in Africa and the Middle East by opening up arsenals of weaponry ranging from small arms to chemicals, experts are warning.
Rebels have seized much of the country including most of the capital Tripoli, but as of late Thursday they were still battling Gaddafi loyalists and struggling to establish law and order in a country wracked by six... (GunPolicy.org)

The Kfar Sava policemen who found dozens of guns packed in boxes at the Galili family's Hod Hasharon home on Monday were sure they had discovered one of the Sharon region's biggest arms dealers. They summoned reinforcements, and dozens of policemen rushed over.
Unfortunately, the policemen did not connect the family name to the name on some of the guns. Zeev Galili, who was home when the officers arrived, insisted that he had inherited the weapons, which originally... (GunPolicy.org)

[Translated summary: Member States of the UN "made significant progress" during the week of negotiations in New York for the adoption in July 2012 of the Arms Trade Treaty, said on July 15 Eric Danon, representative of France in the negotiations.]
Les États membres de l'ONU ont "beaucoup progressé" pendant une semaine de négociations à New York en vue de l'adoption en juillet 2012 d'un traité sur le commerce des armes, a déclaré le 15 juillet Eric Danon,... (GunPolicy.org)

A new policy formulated in recent weeks by the Public Security Ministry will give settlers preference in gun licensing procedures.
Public Security Ministry officials, policemen and others have in recent days reviewed lists of persons seeking gun permits. Under the new guidelines, citizens who live in places defined by security officials as danger regions will receive preference in gun license issuance procedures.
This danger zone designation extends to the entirety... (GunPolicy.org)

While the shootings in Tucson continue to inflame the debate over violent rhetoric in American politics, the international media's reaction to the tragedy is largely focused on alleged killer Jared Lee Loughner's weapon of choice: a gun.
In doing so, it's gotten to the debate over gun laws faster than a U.S. media hung up on the politics.
"This guy was a nutjob. What he did was sick and evil," a Tucson gunshop owner told Agence France-Presse in a piece entitled,... (GunPolicy.org)

A man shot and seriously injured his wife before turning his gun on himself in a failed murder/suicide attempt in Netanya on Saturday.
The violence took place in the presence of the couple's three-year-old girl.
Police broke into the apartment, on Rehov Ha'etzel, after being called to the scene by the man, aged 30.
Paramedics rushed the couple to Laniado Hospital in Netanya, where the woman, 25, was hooked up to a life support machine.
Their daughter was taken into... (GunPolicy.org)

Police have launched an international manhunt for a schizophrenic gun collector after his parents were found brutally murdered.
The bodies of Arthur and Marian Bellucci were discovered at their home on Staten Island by their daughter.
The 25-year-old had gone round to check on her parents after she had not heard from them for some time.
She discovered blood all over the hall and immediately called 911. Police sources today said that the prime suspect in the case was... (GunPolicy.org)

After learning that one of settlers killed in Tuesday's deadly shooting attack had his gun license revoked, interior minister determines West Bank Jews will be given permits without police authorization. 'We won't allow deaths as a result of bureaucracy,' he says
In the aftermath of Tuesday's deadly shooting attack near Hebron, Interior Minister Eli Yishai has instructed Population and Immigration Administration head Amnon Ben-Ami to ease restrictions on the purchase... (GunPolicy.org)

Not even officers from Israeli security service Shin Bet can escape the scourge of lost luggage it seems.
A bag belonging to agents travelling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was mistakenly put on a flight from New York to Los Angeles, not to Washington.
Alarmingly the bag contained four 9mm Glock handguns, which are now missing.
A Shin Bet spokesman told the AP news agency that it is not known whether the guns went missing before or after the luggage was put... (GunPolicy.org)

West Bank residents claim discrimination as nationwide campaign to limit gun use makes no exception for Israelis living beyond the Green Line.
West Bank settlers on Tuesday accused the government of putting them at physical risk by initiating a nationwide crackdown on handguns.
Settlers were infuriated when it emerged at a Knesset meeting on Monday that Israel Police would make no exception for West Bank residents in a campaign to reduce the number of licensed and... (GunPolicy.org)

Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry sources adamantly denied yesterday that they were in any way involved in arms shipments to Somalia.
Spokesmen for both ministries were responding to news of the arrest in the U.S. of Hanoch Miller, an Israeli arms merchant, for allegedly illegal arms sales to Somalia, forging documents, money laundering and violating the UN arms embargo on Somalia.
A Defense Ministry spokesman said there is a ban on arms sales to Somalia and... (GunPolicy.org)

A retired U.S. Air Force colonel charged in the 1980s in an Iran-Contra related weapons smuggling case has been indicted in a U.S. federal court in Miami with conspiring with an Israeli aeronautics engineer to illegally export 2,000 AK-47s to Somalia.
The June 17 indictment against Joseph O'Toole, 79, now based in Claremont, California, was unsealed today. POLITICO earlier Monday reported on the indictment of his Israeli co-defendant, Chanoch Miller. Miller, an Israeli... (GunPolicy.org)

When I talk with people about my support for sex education in Santa Monica's public schools, I hear cheers at how enlightened I am. I also hear how stupid these people believe religious types are for preaching abstinence. What surprises me is how conservative these sex education proponents become when I bring up the subject of gun education. Firearm education saves lives.
Let's put irrational phobias and emotions aside and look at the facts. In 2004 the Federal Assault... (GunPolicy.org)

A sharp and concerning increase in misfire incidents in the IDF – internal data at the GOC Army Headquarters obtained by YNet revealed on Monday. According to the information, soldiers have difficulty operating heavy equipment such as MAG and Negev machine guns, and once every four-and-a-half days, a dangerous incident takes place.
The good news is that no casualties have been reported in machine gun misfires, but the IDF admits that this is a concerning phenomenon... (GunPolicy.org)

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Four Israeli business executives were arrested in Las Vegas, along with 18 Americans, Britons and other nationals, on charges of trying to bribe someone they thought was an African defense minister to obtain a $15 million arms contract.
The swoop on Jan. 19 was the culmination of a two-and-a-half-year undercover sting operation by the U.S. Justice Department.
It was the largest single investigation under the 1977 U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,... (GunPolicy.org)

A Smith & Wesson executive was among 22 officials at suppliers to police and the military who were charged Monday in Las Vegas with violating anti-bribery laws, the Justice Department announced today.
Amaro Goncalves, the Springfield-based gun maker's vice president of sales, was arrested with the others after a 2½-year undercover sting operation aimed at schemes to bribe a foreign official.
Smith & Wesson released the following statement late today:
"Through media... (GunPolicy.org)

A Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. sales executive and a former U.S.
Secret Service officer were among 22 officials at companies that supply law enforcement and the military who were charged with violating U.S. anti-bribery laws.
Amaro Goncalves, vice president of sales at Smith & Wesson, and R. Patrick Caldwell, chief executive officer of Protective Products Of America Inc. and a former deputy director of the Secret Service, were among those accused of engaging in schemes... (GunPolicy.org)

WASHINGTON -- An executive for Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (SWHC.O) and 21 others have been charged with violating federal bribery laws involving the sale of weapons and protective gear, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The indictments accused the individuals, including Smith & Wesson Vice President for Sales Amaro Goncalves, with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, and conspiracy to commit money laundering involving the sale of items... (GunPolicy.org)

The Military Court of Appeals decided to aggravate the sentence of a navy soldier convicted of steeling a weapon from his comrade. The soldier was initially sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, but the appeals court doubled his sentence to five years following comments the soldier made to a police agent in prison, stating that he tried to sell the weapon to criminal Zeev Rosenstein.
In the summer of 2008, the soldier stole an M-16 rifle from his comrade. The... (GunPolicy.org)

A soldier was shot dead by an intoxicated friend in Kiryat Haim, north of Haifa, on Friday night in what police suspect is a firearms accident.
Emergency services were called to an address in Kiryat Haim by a man who told an operator that his friend had been shot.
The caller, a security guard under the influence of alcohol, called paramedics and police twice to ensure they were on their way to the address, before fleeing the scene. He then stopped approximately 100... (GunPolicy.org)

Police on Tuesday arrested five men suspected of illegally trading firearms in the northern region of Wadi Ara, a predominantly Israeli Arab area.
Undercover agents in recent weeks descended on the suspects' homes to purchase six handguns, a rifle and other ammunition. Police thus compiled enough evidence to expose the group and to arrest the suspects for trading and other offensives.
Central District Police officers raided the suspects' homes in Umm El Fahem and El... (GunPolicy.org)

Six suspects, including the ring's mastermind surnamed Ting, were arrested in what may be the largest arms smuggling bust ever in Taiwan, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday.
CIB officials displayed their haul of 181 guns and 22,685 rounds of ammunition in the lobby of its crime-fighting center in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung City.
Powerful submachine guns, rifles, and expanding "dum dum" bullets were shown in the center, which took on the look of an... (GunPolicy.org)

The 2009 season opens today, but hunters are now limited to doves, pheasants and coots — a much-reduced list compared to past years. Last year, they were allowed to hunt doves, turtledoves, pheasants, coots, ducks and even the occasional wild boar.
Hunters are coming together for their first-ever organized meeting on September 12. They plan to form a unified body capable of standing up to the Nature and Parks Authority, the organization charged with regulating sport... (GunPolicy.org)

MANILA — Philippine authorities have seized a foreign cargo ship after crates of automatic rifles and other military equipment were found in its shipment, officials said Friday. The captain and 13 crew members of the Panama-registered M/V Captain Ufuk were also detained at the port of Mariveles town in Bataan province, 45 kilometres west of Manila.
The ship docked Thursday at the port without prior notice, raising suspicion among customs and coast guard officials... (GunPolicy.org)

Police arrested three men on Thursday, including an employee of the Bul Shiruki arms factory, on suspicion of operating a black market of firearms that supplied guns to the criminal world.
According to the police's National Serious and International Crimes (NSIC) Unit, the employee stole gun parts from his Tel Aviv factory before they were stamped with serial numbers, and assembled them into hundreds of functioning firearms, selling them to a security guard.
The... (GunPolicy.org)

This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Egypt to attend an international conference on the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. While the rehabilitation of Gaza is high on the international community's agenda, the implementation of any rebuilding project may be premature. Indeed, given Hamas's ongoing weapons smuggling into Gaza, Israel's mid-January unilateral ceasefire may be short-lived. Although the United States and Israel reached an agreement on... (GunPolicy.org)

An eight-year-old Beduin boy died Friday morning of a stray gunshot to his head. The boy and his younger brother were allegedly playing with their father's licensed gun near Hura in the Negev.
Family members evacuated the mortally wounded child to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where he was pronounced dead.
Police arrived at the site of the incident and have launched an... (GunPolicy.org)

While the gun lobby in the United States took a setback last week with the election of Barack Obama, who supports the ban of assault weapons, a group of Israeli-Americans are now trying to ease restrictions on gun ownership here in Israel. Modeled and named after the powerful but controversial Virginia-based National Rifle Association, it is unclear whether the Israeli NRA will be able to gather enough support to be in any way influential. Several experts have already... (GunPolicy.org)

Finland's government is introducing tougher regulations on handguns following a mass shooting at a school on Tuesday September 23rd, the second in under a year.
The country had been among the most lenient in the world, allowing 15-year-olds to keep a handgun under parental supervision, requiring no medical or psychological tests and no minimum wait for those buying weapons.
The gun-death rate (whether murder, accident or suicide) in rich countries is highest where... (GunPolicy.org)

A license to kill or a leg up for law enforcement — the verdict may still be out, but the Knesset approved the "Shai Dromi Bill" on Tuesday, an amendment to the Penal Law aimed at giving property owners more freedom to use fatal force against people who break into their homes, businesses or farms.
The legislation, named for the Negev farmer who in January 2007 shot at a group of people who broke into his farm to steal livestock, killing Khaled el-Atrash. Dromi was... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian gunman shot dead at least eight people at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem, but Israel said the killings would not derail U.S.-sponsored peace talks.
"It was a slaughterhouse," Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the Zaka emergency service, said of the scene on Thursday night at the Merkaz Harav seminary, one of the city's most prominent Jewish educational centers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attack was greeted with... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — A man concealing an automatic weapon in a cardboard box slipped into a Jewish seminary here and opened fire in the library Thursday night, killing at least eight people in Israel's worst terrorist attack in nearly two years.
Jerusalem Police Chief Aharon Franco said the attack lasted more than 10 minutes before an Israeli army officer killed the assailant.
Rescue workers said at least 10 people were wounded. Most of the victims were men in their 20s. The... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM, Israel — A gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session Thursday, killing eight people and wounding nine before he was slain, police and rescue workers said. It was the first major militant attack in Jerusalem in more than four years.
Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the operation in a statement, and thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate.
The day's violence,... (GunPolicy.org)

In late 2002, India signed a Rs. 880 million (about $20 million) deal with Israel Military Industries for 3,070 TAR-21 Tavor assault rifles, a new bullpup design developed for use by the Israeli Defense Forces. The Israelis had just selected the compact Tavor over the Colt M4/M16 as its next-generation assault rifle, and the compact new weapons would be issued to India's special forces personnel, where its ergonomics, reliability in heat and sand, and and fast-point/... (GunPolicy.org)

The number of Israelis carrying guns without valid licenses hit a 10-year low in 2006, the Interior Ministry revealed on Tuesday.
During the past year, the gun-licensing branch of the Interior Ministry worked to lower the number of Israelis carrying guns without valid licenses. Whereas in 2005 there were around 33,000 Israelis carrying guns without a valid license, there were only around 13,000 citizens doing the same in 2006.
But more Israelis were issued private... (GunPolicy.org)

Egypt has sent a large quantity of arms to the forces of moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party with the help of Israel, an Israeli official said.
"In coordination with Israel, Egypt delivered a large quantity of guns and munitions to the Abbas forces," the official told AFP, asking to remain anonymous.
The Haaretz daily meanwhile reported that "a load of 2,000 Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles as well as 20,000 cartridge clips and two million... (GunPolicy.org)

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — In houses along the steel wall separating Gaza and Egypt, the lights are flickering a sign that smugglers are digging tunnels below, their powerful drills weakening the flow of electricity.
Tunneling is the fastest-growing business in this impoverished border town, and one of the biggest obstacles to any lasting Israeli-Palestinian truce.
Since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip a year ago, the number of tunnels for smuggling weapons, drugs and... (GunPolicy.org)

Israeli expertise in the sphere of arms exports and security know-how are famous worldwide — but at a heavy image cost for the country. A new UN report, whose contents are being made public here for the first time, places indirect responsibility on Israeli arms dealers for acts of genocide committed in recent years in Africa.
The report claims that the Israelis, in contravention of the UN Security Council's embargo resolutions, sold arms to warring factions in places... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Police busted a network of Israeli Arabs selling weapons and ammunition to Palestinian militants, a police spokesman said Sunday.
Twelve men were arrested and charged with selling arms to militant cells in the West Bank, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Police also seized three assault rifles and 8,000 bullets, he said.
Eight of the men have been charged with weapons trafficking, while four are still being held pending charges, he said.
Rosenfeld... (GunPolicy.org)

LONDON — There are four Israeli companies among the world's 100 leading arms manufacturers, according to a report published last week.
The study, "Arms without Borders," was prepared by the Control Arms campaign in cooperation with Amnesty International, Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms.
In a reference to Israel and other nations, the report says: "While the industrialized countries remain the world's major arms exporters, a... (GunPolicy.org)

Four Israeli companies appear in a list of the top 100 arms dealers in the world, according to a report published yesterday by Amnesty International. The companies are Israel Aircraft Industries, Rafael Arms Development Authority, Elbit Systems and Israel Military Industries.
The report, entitled "Arms without Borders," was launched as the United Nations opened its annual session on arms control, in the run-up to a landmark vote at the UN to start work on an Arms... (GunPolicy.org)

An American man was charged on Wednesday with trying to import weapons that police suspect he intended to use to attack Palestinians, a police spokesman said.
The 39-year-old California resident was arrested June 11 at an Israeli port after claiming a shipping container that contained a snipers' rifle, a bullet-making machine, gunpowder and cartridges, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
Police had no English spelling of the man's name, but the Hebrew spelling would be... (GunPolicy.org)

IDF and police investigators working jointly have solved a case involving the theft of 40 weapons from an IDF base three months ago.
During the investigation, an undercover agent purchased the weapons from the thieves, among them IDF soldiers who provided them with information on the weapons.
Overall, five suspects were detained in connection with the case and some of the weapons have been recovered.
Several weeks ago, investigators received information that... (GunPolicy.org)

Recurring technical and bureaucratic slippages have further delayed till the end of the year the supply of around 3,000 Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) 5.56-mm Tavor 21 assault rifles (TAR-21) with 40-mm under slung grenade launchers to India's Special Forces (SF) or para-commandos though almost four years have elapsed since the contract was signed.
The $20-million deal for the TAR 21s including ammunition, was signed in late 2002 with Israel Military Industries (IMI).... (GunPolicy.org)

A 32-year-old new immigrant from the U.S. was arrested on Wednesday for bringing arms into the country.
On Thursday the Jerusalem Magistrates Court extended his remand by four days.
The man, who immigrated to Israel in 2005 and eventually settled in Beit Shemesh, brought with him a large container with, among other things, an M-16 rifle, a sniper rifle, pistol, magazine clips, army equipment, commando knives, helmets, night vision apparatus and rappelling gear.
The... (GunPolicy.org)

QABATIA — A 15 year old mentally disabled Palestinian boy carrying a broken toy rifle was shot dead by Israeli troops during an arrest operation in the northern West Bank town of Qabatia, near Jenin, yesterday.
A Palestinian security officer who saw the boy, Mujahed Al Samadi, struck by a bullet — one of three residents said had been fired at him — said last night that he had been on his own 300 metres from a house on higher ground which was occupied by troops... (GunPolicy.org)

Spent cases litter the floor of the indoor shooting range. The smell of gunpowder hangs in the air and mingles with the heavy odor of rubber, which covers the walls and ceiling to prevent ricochet. The heavy steel door shuts behind my instructor and me. A fresh target — not a circle, but a red "x" — has been hung seven meters away, on the opposite side of the room.
The time has come to pick up the gun, a lightweight .22, and take aim …
Many are under the... (GunPolicy.org)

Soldiers didn't see a thing: A total of 40 weapons were stolen from an IDF base about 10 days ago after thieves broke into the base overnight.
The story was only cleared for publication Monday.
The weapons stolen include eight grenade launchers and 32 assault rifles. At this time Military Police have no leads in the case and estimate the weapons have already been handed over to criminal or terror elements.
The theft has been characterized as "one of the most... (GunPolicy.org)

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Yasser Qishta, 25, shows a visitor into his near-finished house, a two-story cinderblock structure with a pristine, pastel interior, all new paint and gleaming ceramic tile. The house cost him $32,000, a fortune for a man of his age in the Gaza Strip's troubled economy.
The house tells everyone in the neighborhood what he has been up to: burrowing beneath the border to help bring illegal arms into the Gaza Strip.
"I risked my life, but now I can... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW YORK — After two weeks of talking, governments have achieved virtually no outcome from a UN conference on controlling the proliferation and misuse of small arms. During this time, approximately 12,000 more people have died at gunpoint and many more have been injured, bereaved or denied access to livelihoods, healthcare and education because of armed violence.
Usually at loggerheads on disarmament issues, the USA and Iran, Israel and Egypt are on the same side of... (GunPolicy.org)

Some 47 percent of women murdered by their partners or relatives in the past five years were killed by security guards, soldiers or police officers who carried licensed weapons, according to a report compiled by a team of Haifa University researchers studying the impact of the intifada on the lives of Jewish and Arab women.
The data compiled by researchers on behalf of "Isha le Isha," a Haifa feminist center, indicates that between October 2000 and April 2005, 38... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Palestinian authorities began enforcing a ban on public displays of weapons Thursday. Three people were arrested and the guns of off-duty police officers were confiscated.
The crackdown was a key step toward imposing order in the chaotic Gaza Strip.
Pressing forward with its military campaign, Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinian gunmen during raids in the West Bank. Israel launched the wave of airstrikes and arrest raids last weekend in response to... (GunPolicy.org)

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian gunrunners smuggled hundreds of assault rifles and pistols across the Egyptian frontier into Gaza, dealers and border officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The influx confirmed Israeli fears about giving up border control and could further destabilize Gaza.
Black market prices for weapons dropped sharply, with AK-47 assault rifles nearly cut in half to $1,300 and even steeper reductions for handguns.
News of the smuggling... (GunPolicy.org)

TEL AVIV — After a decade of financial problems, which have required 2.2 billion dollars in recovery plans, Israel's state-owned weapon's manufacturer, Israeli Military Industries (IMI), is set to be privatised after a proposal by the country's finance and defence ministers — Ehud Olmert and Shaul Mofaz — was given the go-ahead.
IMI is the main supplier of weapons to the Israeli military and produces airplanes, radar systems, tanks and unmanned aircrafts, as... (GunPolicy.org)

A quarter of a million Israeli citizens possess personal firearms, according to an Interior Ministry survey.
The survey said that as of June 2005, 236,879 Israeli citizens had guns. At the same time, the survey pointed to a downwards trend in personal weapon possession.
The study also found that a worrying number of guns were held without valid license, 34,000, due to a failure by owners to renew their licenses.
A spokesman for the firearms branch of the Interior... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier opened fire inside a bus in Israel's northern Galilee region Thursday, killing four Israeli Arabs and seriously wounding five other people before he was killed, according to Israeli police.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the attack, calling it "a reprehensible act of a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist who sought to attack innocent Israeli citizens."
"This terrorist event was a deliberate attempt to harm the fabric of... (GunPolicy.org)

TEL AVIV — Too many Israeli security guards are taking their weapons home with them, a move that could be dangerous and cause accidents, a government committee said on Wednesday.
In addition, the guards are undertrained and under supervised, said the group, headed by retired police commander Danny Brinker.
The committe is expected to present its findings to Interior Minister Ophir Pines-Paz and Internal Security Minister Gidon Ezra.
About 40,000 handguns and... (GunPolicy.org)

The Interior Ministry has suggested more costly regulations for citizens who are licensed to possess a handgun.
The new regulations, which require the approval of the Knesset Finance Committee, address persons who fail to renew their permit every five years. Such violators would be slapped with a large fine that continues to increase each year.
In addition to the license renewal every five years, there will now be an annual fee required of licensed gun... (GunPolicy.org)

It was the shooting of Asma Mughayar that swept away any lingering doubts I had about how it is the Israeli army kills so many Palestinian children and civilians.
Asma, 16, and her younger brother, Ahmad, were collecting laundry from the roof of their home in the south of the Gaza Strip in May last year when they were felled by an Israeli army sniper. Neither child was armed or threatening the soldier, who fired unseen through a hole punched in the wall of a... (GunPolicy.org)

Left-wing MK Ran Cohen (Yahad) made a move to curb possible violence by settlers on Wednesday by proposing a bill that would force them to take an oath of allegiance to the state as a condition for being supplied with IDF weapons for security.
While presenting the bill for a preliminary reading, Cohen put the government on the spot and asked why it had decided to oppose the legislation. Cohen told Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra, Justice Minister Tzippi Livni... (GunPolicy.org)

In the middle of the night, Israeli troops sneaked over the border fence amid the granite mountains, moving silently so the Egyptian guards would not hear. They somehow quietly lifted a mammoth cement border marker that weighs as much as those ancient stone relics at Stonehenge and moved it westward. Why? As part of the Zionist state's expansionist, underhanded effort to steal more Egyptian land.
This may sound far-fetched and paranoid, but it actually comes from a... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military plans to disarm residents of four Jewish settlements in the West Bank two weeks before the communities are to be dismantled this summer, officials said Monday, reflecting growing concern that settler resistance in the West Bank will be far more difficult to put down than in the fenced-in Gaza Strip.
Access for Israeli extremists already living in the West Bank to the four tiny northern settlements is relatively easy, and the warning... (GunPolicy.org)

Border Guard and IDF units succeeded in preventing Arab terrorists from smuggling 21 Kalachnikov rifles over the Egypt-Israel border. The interception took place near Har Sagi.
Border guard lookouts spotted four individuals attempting to sneak across the border carrying large sacks.
When the IDF and Border Guard units gave chase with the help of an air force helicopter, the gun-runners abandoned their load and fled.
The sacks were recovered by the soldiers and... (GunPolicy.org)

Israeli soldiers have shot dead a Palestinian boy who was playing with a toy rifle, after apparently mistaking him for a gunman.
Troops patrolling Tubas, a West Bank village near Jenin, fired at the boy, aged 13 or 14, after he aimed the toy weapon at them, witnesses said.
He was with a group of children who were taunting the soldiers.
An Israeli military source confirmed troops had opened fire on a crowd after spotting what appeared to be a gunman.
Palestinian... (GunPolicy.org)

A 15-year-old girl was caught at her Modi'in school Sunday with a 9mm pistol in her bag.
Police detained the girl for questioning Sunday.
The weapon is owned by her father. The girl claimed she brought the weapon into school to threaten a boy who harassed her and her friends.
Officers discovered that the boy she wished to threaten would annoy and laugh at her and her friends.
The girl was spotted holding the gun by another schoolgirl, who told one of the... (GunPolicy.org)

The Director General of the Ministry of Defense has ordered the immediate cessation of arms deals to the Ivory Coast [Côte d'Ivoire].
Amos Yaron issued instructions Tuesday to suspend granting of all export licenses and negotiation for arms contracts with the beleaguered West African state.
"This decision was made in light of the recent developments in this country and at the request of the French government. It will remain in effect until the situation in that... (GunPolicy.org)

Whatever the specific background to the incident in which an armed school guard shot to death an air-conditioning technician in Bnei Brak last Thursday, it was a tragedy waiting to happen. And it is not the first of its kind.
The stationing of guards outside public facilities in this country is indispensable. Many guards saved numerous lives by bodily blocking terrorists' entry to where they could commit mass murder. These guards have literally sacrificed themselves... (GunPolicy.org)

Tunnels under the Philadelphi Route that cuts through the Palestinian and Egyptian town of Rafah make up one of the greatest threats with which Israeli forces in the area have to contend. Many senior IDF officers have described them as "a subway running between the Palestinian side to Egypt."
The tunnels, built by Palestinians to smuggle vast amounts of weapons, can reach up to hundreds of meters in length and are built from inside Palestinian homes in Rafah. Some are... (GunPolicy.org)

Israel Police, in conjunction with the Interior Ministry, kicked off a firearms-return campaign Sunday. According to the plan, weapons held by the public without proper permits must be returned by the end of the year.
In the first stage of the campaign, letters will be sent to some 32,000 citizens who hold firearms without a valid permit.
At the end of the operation in October, criminal investigations will be launched into the citizens who did not respond to the... (GunPolicy.org)

The police have beefed up their deployments for the Passover holiday, which started Monday night, as all the security services move to boost the already high state of alert.
Aharonishki on Sunday ordered the police to remain at the level of vigilance that has been in place since the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last month.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned at Sunday's cabinet meeting that, "Terror organizations, in particular Hamas, will make... (GunPolicy.org)

HAIFA, Israel — The Uzi submachine gun, the weapon that became a trademark of Israel's firearms industry and a symbol of bravado on battlefields and movie screens, is becoming a relic within the institution that introduced the gun nearly a half-century ago: the Israeli army.
Front-line soldiers abandoned the Uzi two decades ago for the American M-16. This year, the army's special forces stopped training with the Uzi and have turned to more modern firearms.
Israel... (GunPolicy.org)

The Uzi sub-machinegun, a symbol of Israeli national identity, has been withdrawn from service by the defence forces after half a century.
Compact, simple and resistant to dust and sand, the 9mm Uzi in its machine-pistol form, was designed by a former resistance fighter, Uzi Gal.
"It was a great moment for Israel," Lt Col Gal, who died in 2002 aged 79, once said, "… a weapon that the Jewish people had made for themselves, and I designed it from the ground... (GunPolicy.org)

Israel Military Industries sources say the company wants to bring in partners for its light arms factory.
Dror Marom — Sources inform "Globes" that Uzi manufacturer Israel Military Industries is optimistic that it will be able to resume sales in the US. Former President Bill Clinton signed a bill banning certain types of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, including the Uzi, blocking signed contracts worth millions of dollars.
The law expires this year, and IMI... (GunPolicy.org)

PANAMA CITY — Panamanian authorities have detained an Israeli businessman, Simon Yelinek, who is suspected of arms dealings with Colombia, his lawyer said Friday.
Yelinek was arrested Thursday night at Panama's Tocumen international airport, said the lawyer Sidney Sitton.
He is under questioning for arms trafficking, one police official said.
Yelinek is suspected of being linked to an arms deal uncovered last April by Colombian daily El Tiempo.
According to the... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Two Katyusha rockets, 500 grenades, and 130 firearms were among $1 million worth of stolen army equipment returned during a monthlong amnesty period, Israeli army officials said Thursday.
Other equipment included rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-held antitank missiles, C-4 explosives, antitank grenades, heavy-caliber machine guns, tear-gas canisters, and more than 200,000 rounds of ammunition, the army said. Also turned in were weapons captured during... (GunPolicy.org)

The Israeli engineer Uziel Gal, who has died of cancer in the United States aged 78, was the inventor of the Uzi submachine gun, one of the most famous, lethal and notorious little weapons of the 20th century.
With its distinctive snub barrel and folding shoulder stock, the Uzi became the largest-selling submachine gun in the western world; it is estimated that some 10m have been manufactured. Small, technically adept and potent, it was popularised in numerous action... (GunPolicy.org)

The gun he invented could hardly have had a higher profile. It helped the Israeli army establish a fledgling nation, took a starring role in Hollywood action movies, and outraged campaigners against the scourge of firearms on the streets of inner-city America.
But Uzi Gal, who has died at 79 in Philadelphia — 48 years after he finished designing the submachine gun that bears his name — was so little enamoured of a life on the world stage that he tried to stop the... (GunPolicy.org)

When Tal Bejerano, a 38-year-old computer engineer from Karmiel, opened his mail box a few weeks ago, he was in for a surprise: A warning letter from the Interior Ministry demanded that he renew his gun license. If he did not, Bejerano was warned, criminal proceedings would be instigated against him.
Bejerano's gun — an airgun he purchased from his pocket money at the age of 14 — was left unused for many years, rusted and is no longer in working order. However, the... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — The arrests of 10 Israeli men on suspicion of selling 50,000 stolen bullets to Palestinian militants has put the spotlight on a long-running furtive trade that helped arm the Palestinians both before and during their current uprising.
Despite the deep-rooted bitterness of the Mideast conflict, some Israelis, apparently motivated by the prospect of quick money, are funneling weapons and ammunition to the Palestinians with the knowledge they may be used... (GunPolicy.org)

Judea and Samaria police have arrested a reservist major in a widening probe of Israelis suspected of selling weapons to Palestinians.
Particularly startling in the case is that two of the suspects come from Adora, a Judea community in which four people were killed in a terrorist infiltration in April.
Maj. Ya'acov Uriel, the latest suspect arrested, whose hometown was not given, is suspected of stealing weapons from the IDF which eventually made their way to... (GunPolicy.org)

Israel's national shooting team has become the latest victim of the turmoil in the Middle East after Britain blocked the sale of sporting ammunition despite assurances that the cartridges have no military use.
The export ban has disrupted the Israeli squad's preparations for next month's world shooting championships in Finland.
The Department of Trade and Industry refused to grant an export licence for 350,000 rounds of the .22 calibre ammunition made by Eley of... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier on Sunday shot and wounded a deaf Israeli bus passenger that he suspected was a Palestinian suicide bomber, the second time in two days in which soldiers have wounded or killed people they mistakenly identified as militants.
On Saturday evening, Israeli tanks fired shells and machine guns, killing a Palestinian woman and her 13-year-old daughter in a field in the Gaza Strip. Soldiers opened fire when they saw two "suspicious figures"... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — The flier thumbtacked to the The Shtiblach Synagogue bulletin board looks like the others posted around it, advising the congregation of schedules and events. Its message, however, is striking: Worshippers who have firearms are requested to bring them to prayer services.
Asaf Teboulle, 22, an Orthodox Jew, does just that. On the Sabbath, when prayer replaces work of every kind and even using a phone or a pen is prohibited, he heeds the call to arms and... (GunPolicy.org)

TEL AVIV — William Hazan likes to have a good time at the Seafood Market, a restaurant and club. Every Monday I go to the Seafood to drink, to dance, to be happy, the 46-year-old Moroccan-born Israeli said.
But last month his fun was interrupted as gunfire shattered the club's windows.
It's something terrorist, he said to himself. He led his wife and friends to the bathroom and told them to lie on the floor. Crawling back to his table, he fished in a friend's... (GunPolicy.org)

TEL AVIV — William Hazan likes to have a good time at the Seafood Market, a restaurant and club in Tel Aviv. Every Monday I go to the Seafood to drink, to dance, to be happy, the 46-year-old Moroccan-born Israeli said.
But last month his fun was interrupted by gunfire shattering the club's windows.
It's something terrorist, he said to himself. He led his wife and friends to the bathroom and told them to lie on the floor.
Staying low, he crawled back to his table,... (GunPolicy.org)

The deterioration in the security situation and the Interior Ministry's decision to ease the criteria for granting a permit for a personal weapon have led to a marked increase in the demand for guns among private citizens, security guard companies and private and public organizations.
The heavy demand, however, is encountering two problems — a weapons shortage and bureaucratic foot-dragging in granting permits.
Due to an embargo on arms exports in Israel imposed... (GunPolicy.org)

The Interior Ministry yesterday announced it is making it easier for Judea and Samaria residents and business owners to acquire firearms.
The ministry said in light of the security situation, business owners will be able to receive gun permits immediately and new residents will only have to wait three months. Until now, only someone who has lived or worked in Judea and Samaria for at least six months was eligible to receive a firearms... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Israel's rabbis have agreed to allow several worshippers to be armed in every synagogue during upcoming holidays, making an exception to Jewish laws because of fears of terror attacks, officials said Tuesday.
The Religious Affairs ministry agreed to a request by security officials that four people in each synagogue be given weapons and cell phones. Orthodox Jews are banned from even touching such items on holidays and the Sabbath, except in... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Israelis jittery over a recent string of Palestinian bombings and shooting attacks are applying for gun licenses in record numbers, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The spokeswoman said an unprecedented 1,500 gun applications were filed nationwide Tuesday, more than 200 times the average daily rate in 2000, the year a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began.
We have no recollection of applications on such a scale, she told... (GunPolicy.org)

Israelis are rushing to buy weapons in the wake of the sudden surge in Palestinian attacks on Israeli cities and the government's decision last week to further loosen the country's already lax gun laws.
There are 340,000 legal gun owners in a population of 6.3 million but Vered Schnittman, the manager of a gun shop in the central town of Petah Tikva, says her custom has now risen 10-fold, to 60 shoppers a day.
Everybody wants a pistol. Nobody wants to be afraid any... (GunPolicy.org)

Pushing back her pink watchstrap and fawn jacket, the 25-year-old primary school teacher goes into a crouch and looses eight rounds at the dimly lit target.
As the Israeli Government announced plans to issue 40,000 more gun licences to civilians, Elinor Shor's presence on a Jerusalem firing range is the clearest indication yet of the Israeli public's fear.
No settler or gun fanatic, Ms Shor would never have considered acquiring a handgun a few months ago, but she... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — With the current escalation of terror, the Interior Ministry has been inundated with a 75 percent increase in requests for weapons permits over the last year, a figure that is expected to rise even further. According to figures released yesterday, the ministry received 7,790 request for permits last year, compared to 4,417 in 2000.
About 60% of applications were accepted in both years.
A total of 265,325 people currently have permits to carry... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Sixty thousand additional gun permits are to be distributed to Israeli civilians as authorities loosen licensing restrictions to help fight a growing wave of terrorism.
Armed civilians have played a significant role in bringing down terrorists during the Palestinian uprising, most recently during an attack this week by a Palestinian gunman at a Tel Aviv restaurant where a wedding party was under way.
A 46-year-old civilian packing a pistol fatally shot... (GunPolicy.org)

David Harel, the joint owner of Olam Haneshek, a firearms store in Tel Aviv, had a busy morning yesterday.
Twenty customers came to Harel's shop looking for personal handguns. In the end, Harel, who has been in the gun business for 17 years, sold five pistols. Before the eruption of the Al-Aqsa intifada 18 months ago, he sold an average of five pistols a month. A pistol can cost anywhere from a few hundred shekels to NIS 5,000.
Officials in the Interior Ministry who... (GunPolicy.org)

An alert customer shot dead a terrorist who tried to set off an explosive device in a supermarket a few minutes ago in Efrat. The town is in Gush Etzion, a block of Jewish communities in Judea, south of Bethlehem.
At least one small explosion did take place, leaving one customer lightly wounded but causing no casualties, said Jerusalem Post reporter Margot Dudkevitch. Nails from one of the explosions littered the floor.
Further tragedy was averted when a woman... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — The Israel Airports Authority said Monday that it was investigating a breach in security at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv in which a passenger flew to New York with a pistol packed in his hand luggage.
The Israeli man realized he had been carrying the gun in his carry-on luggage when he arrived in New York over the weekend. He immediately informed Israeli officials of the security breach, an Israel Airports Authority spokesman said.
We... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — An Interior Ministry commission established to reexamine policy for issuing personal firearms permits intends to liberalize the criteria, ministry spokeswoman Tova Elian said yesterday.
However, Elian said, once recommendations are submitted, they have to be approved by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, and face possible review by the High Court of Justice.
Elian was reacting to media reports that the commission's report, to be submitted by Deputy Interior... (GunPolicy.org)

We have all heard that we should be observant, and report strange events to the police. But one option has not been encouraged in the media, indeed, quite the opposite.
News articles mention the jump in gun sales that have taken place since 9/11, but fail to mention the benefits and belittle those who buy the guns. We could learn something about responding to terrorism from Israel, and encourage more ordinary, responsible citizens to carry guns.
Israelis realize that... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi refused to accept protection from the security services as a matter of principle, his colleagues said yesterday.
He believed that if there is a parent or a child who had to drive without defense in the territories, he also would be unprotected, his communications adviser Chagit Sachs said.
According to MK Michael Kleiner (Herut) and other friends, Ze'evi still carried a pistol. Maybe he thought he was a target, Kleiner... (GunPolicy.org)

RAFAH Border, Gaza Strip — Three shots ring out in the still of the afternoon, and three Palestinians run for cover. The Israeli army sniper on the 25 metre-high security tower watches the men below scatter and dive for gaps in the concrete wall.
As Sergeant Dan Jacobi pulls the trigger, one Palestinian shoves a wooden crate into waiting hands on the Gaza side of the wall: one more lethal cargo slipping past Israeli troops, one more shipment of arms and ammunition... (GunPolicy.org)

Ten Israeli security guards have been caught trying to enter the Olympic Village with banned bulletproof vests and gun holsters.
An Australian Customs Service official, who confiscated the equipment on Saturday, said the guards told police they brought it in the equipment because they hoped a ban on weapons at the Games might be lifted.
This was despite repeated warnings from Olympic security commanders and the Federal Government that no guns would be allowed in for... (GunPolicy.org)

TEL AVIV — Hundreds of former IDF career officers were forced to give up their personal firearms to the police in recent months, and these weapons, which were purchased privately, will be thrown into the sea, without their owners receiving compensation.
Last December, an IDF order took effect, stating that any career officer, who purchased a personal weapon from January 1996 onward, must give it in to the police, beginning in 2000. Anyone ranking lieutenant-colonel... (GunPolicy.org)

MIAMI - A joint operation by U.S., Israeli and Colombian authorities may have thwarted one of Latin America's largest illegal arms deals, interrupting alleged plans to ship as many as 50,000 AK-47 automatic rifles, as well as other weapons, to armed groups in Colombia.
Police in Colombia and Israel who infiltrated what they described as a $100-million arms smuggling ring say the deal was being underwritten with large sums of counterfeit dollars being manufactured in... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — If one looks at the streets of Israel, it sometimes appears to be a country awash in guns, with soldiers, police and settlers carrying Uzis.
Paradoxically, Israel has incredibly strict gun control laws. Try to buy a handgun, and you'll face perhaps a 3-month waiting period, police, medical and psychological checks and hard-to-win approval from the Interior Ministry.
Prospective gun owners must also pass a gun competence test. A record of substance abuse... (GunPolicy.org)

It is becoming an all too familiar picture on our television screens: A teenager in an American school gets frustrated as a result of a minor punishment. He goes home, takes his father's machine gun out of the closet, returns to school the next day and opens fire indiscriminately.
And the response is also all too familiar. It always takes place in a small, peaceful, quiet town, the sort of place where violence is never expected, far away from the centers of vice and... (GunPolicy.org)

Israel Military Industries (IMI) has decided to cancel production of Uzi rifles in the US in the factories of its partner Mossberg, so as not to put at risk future large arms deals with the US military, IMI and military sources told "Globes" today.
IMI looked into transferring production to Florida or Connecticut, to circumvent the ban imposed by US President Bill Clinton on the importing of the rifles into the US. However, IMI sources said today that the company was... (GunPolicy.org)

Following this week's decision by US President Bill Clinton to permanently extend the ban on Uzi imports into the US, Israel Military Industries received an order for 5,000 of the rifles. The order was placed by US arms distributors, and most of the rifles will be supplied to private customers.
IMI light weapons division manager Arik Shor told "Globes" that the rifles would be manufactured from now on in the US, in one of two plants of Moussberg, IMI's US partner in... (GunPolicy.org)

TEL AVIV — TAAS-Israel Industries, banned from exporting a semiautomatic version of the Uzi submachine gun into the US, is now exploring the prospect of producing the weapon through an American company.
TAAS executives said production of the Uzi in the US would circumvent the executive order issued by US President Bill Clinton on Monday that permanently barred the import of 58 assault weapons that were modified for sport shooting.
The modification was a loophole... (GunPolicy.org)

JERUSALEM — The cabinet yesterday accepted a proposal by Communications Minister Limor Livnat to establish an interministerial team, in cooperation with the Knesset Committee on the Advancement of the Status of Women, to examine how to increase cooperation among the various organizations dealing with family violence involving weapons.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the recent spousal murders "a spreading plague; we must do everything in our power to reduce... (GunPolicy.org)